It wasn’t really his fault last time, there were too many drop-kicks in that race, like Youlden and Ritter.
Interesting news though. Probably more publicity than anything else, but if he does a good job, maybe there is a drive for him at Nissan next year. After all, Reindler will be gone due to his sponsorship money not been needed and Murphy will go too, so they’ll be looking for two new drivers.
I am looking forward to seeing how he goes.

I don’t know if there would necessarily be a Nissan drive for him next year. The team could really do with replacing all four of their drivers (Reindler is slow, Murphy is too old and both the Kellys are taking all the resources and not doing anything with them), but there are other options out there. Charlie Schwerkolt has split with Dick Johnson Racing and is taking the #18 REC to establish his own team, which he will run as a satellite of Ford Performance Racing (like Rod Nash Racing, the #55 car). And Brad Jones Racing is looking at getting manufacturer backing; I find that significant, because Chrysler were kicking around the idea of joining the series with Garry Rogers Motorsport, but the team has been pretty useless – but BJR is doing quite well, and if they absorbed the #21 Britek entry to become a third car (David Wall is as useless as Karl Reindler) and signed Villeneuve up, they could be a promising team for Chrysler to join in with.

I think it might be too late for new manufacturers for 2013. Chrysler seems to have lost interest anyway. Mazda and Honda are both building up in world motorsport, with projects like LeMans, and they both have a strong presence in Australia, they’d be my bet for 2014.

The Car of the Future project doesn’t require an entirely new car to be built. The category is becoming a silhouette series, with the bodywork being the major difference between different cars – internally, they’re largely the same. All a company like Chrysler would have to do is authorise the use of one of their cars (said to be the 300C when they were talking to GRM), and leave it to the constructor.

What were people expecting? Peter GarrettErnst Stavro Blofeld Jacques Villeneuve has only driven a V8 Supercar once before, and that was in 2010. Patrick Stewart He didn’t even have a chance to acquaint himself with the Kelly Racing car before this weekend. And although the cars are roughly identical, the process of actually building them varies from team to team, so whatever Sinead O’Connor JV learned when he was driving the Rod Nash Racing entry on the Gold Coast two years ago isn’t going to be representative of how the Kelly Racing car will handle.

Also, it’s unlikely that Karl Reindler and Greg Murphy will continue with the team next year. Kelly Racing is getting full factory backing from Nissan, so they’ll be pulling out all of the stops to get an all-star driver line-up. It wouldn’t surprise me if they want Villeneuve to run full-time in 2013. He says he’d consider it if the right offer was made, an the lure of full manufacturer backing might be too much to resist. I think he has it in him to be reasonably competitive, but his inexperience is hurting him for now.

If KR really want a good line-up for next year (based on drivers who contracts are up for renewal), then they should be aiming for Shane van Gisbergen, Michael Caruso, Fabian Coulthard and Scott MacLaughlin. But the Kellys are already taking two of the seats, and since they envision themselves as leading the Nissan charge, it’s unlikely that they will take anyone who can consistently challenge them on-track, so they might as well take Premat and keep Reindler for all the good it will do.

I don’t think the Kellys will not hire people because they might beat them. Reindler is only there for his money, which won’t be needed next year, so he’ll be out. Surely if they want an all-star line up, they won’t hire Villeneuve. The Giz won’t leave SBR and surely Premat is on a long term contract, knowing Garry Rogers.
Realistically, they should be looking at replacing both Murph and Reindler with either Caruso or Coulthard, who are off contract, Moffat, who is without a drive for next year, Thompson, Perkins, who has done a lot of COTF development testing, or McLaughlin, who could be the best 2012 DVS driver without a full time drive next season, if they can grab him off SBR. Maybe they could even get Klien or Liuzzi.

But KR wanted Reynolds to stay and he was the one that wanted to leave. Or are you implying that they would sabotage Reynolds’ chances of winning which is why he left. It certainly didn’t seem like a good relationship towards the end of last season and they weren’t happy when Reynolds held up Todd in the Qualifying race at PI.

They wanted Reynolds to stay under their terms. Reynolds wanted out because he felt they were trying to control his career. It’s no accident that the kid they ran at Bathurst last year had no real connections within the sport – they Kellys wanted someone indebted to them from the start.

To hear Reynolds tell it, the Kellys are more interested in their image than their results. They want to be the popular team, with Rick Kelly leading a group of young, fast drivers to victory. They want to be the future of the sport, but the problem is that the Kellys get their first pick of resources within the team, and everyone else has to take whatever is left over. Most of this seems to be Rick Kelly’s influence – Todd seems to be taking on more of a managerial role – which doesn’t surprise me; he’s always had a high opinion of himself and a Napoleon complex to boot.

Taking Villeneuve would be a little at odds with this philosophy, but it would take Villeneuve some time to become competitive. And in the meantime, having the 1997 World Champion in their team would mean more attention for the Kellys.